The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) is Australia's national transport safety investigator. The ATSB's function is to improve safety and public confidence in the aviation, marine and rail modes of transport. The ATSB is Australia's prime agency for the independent investigation of civil aviation, rail and maritime accidents, incidents and safety deficiencies.

Aviation safety issues and actions

Recommendation issued to: Civil Aviation Safety Authority

"Investigation into Ansett Australia maintenance safety
deficiencies and the control of continuing airworthiness of Class A
aircraft".

Output text

The Australian Transport Safety Bureau recommends that the Civil
Aviation Safety Authority, as a part of its oversight role, review
the policies and procedures for carrying out, and responding to the
findings of, risk assessments of organisations that operate Class A
aircraft. The review should address the adequacy of methods
for:
* gathering and assessing information relevant to possible risks to
safe operations
* determining, carrying out, and reviewing the CASA response to the
assessed level of risk.

Initial response

Initial response

Date issued:

31 October 2006

Response from:

Civil Aviation Safety Authority

Action status:

Closed - Accepted

Response text:

In October 2006, CASA issued Notice of Proposed Rule Making NPRM
0604MS, A Proposal to Modernise and Harmonise Rules for the
Maintenance of Australian Aircraft and Licensing of Aircraft
Maintenance Personnel for industry comment by 27 November
2006.

The NPRM addresses the policy outcomes of adopting a regulatory
style similar to that proven by the European Aviation Safety Agency
(EASA) and would amend Parts 42, 66, 145 and 147 of the Civil
Aviation Safety Regulations 1998 (CASRs).

ATSB response:

The NPRM, as proposed, should address the issue in the
recommendation.

Further correspondence

Further correspondence

Date issued:

30 January 2003

Response from:

Civil Aviation Safety Authority

Response status:

Monitor

Response text:

The Authority acknowledges the intent of this Recommendation.
The Authority's audit surveillance of operators currently comprises
regular, scheduled audits that are supported by targeted risk-based
audits. A Safety Trend Indicator (STI) was introduced in 1999-2000.
It allows the Authority to determine, in a consistent manner, the
higher likelihood of safety problems occurring with an aviation
organisation. This is one factor that allows the Authority to
decide which operators should be subject to extra, or risk-based,
surveillance. A STI is conducted every six months and after a
surveillance audit and, in developing the STI, the Authority took
into account international practice.

STI is a valuable tool for providing safety trend information on
particular risk issues affecting particular sectors of the industry
at particular locations.

The Authority is currently developing an enhanced version of STI
which will capture more data and enhance the Authority's
comparative risk analysis capability. The intention is to monitor
each component of an airline's operations so that it can focus its
audits on the component(s) of an airline that pose the greatest
safety risk.

ATSB response:

The ATSB will continue to monitor the implementation of CASA's
proposed safety action.